Snakes And Dragons And Bears, Oh My!
by Dianne
Summary: 'What big turnouts you have my dear,' hissed the great fiery dragon. 'The better to prevent you from eating me,' panted the paramedic.


But the window was always supposed to be the way out, right; when on all sides you were surrounded, flames slithering toward you pushing even the air out if its way to eat you?

_What big turnout coats you have my dear_ hissed the orange serpent, its many tongues merely swallowing the feeble gust of water shot at it from somewhere below through powdered glass that was once an escape

"The better to keep you from eating me," panted the pained paramedic.

The snake slithered closer turning into a dragon, plumes of steam a by-product of having washed down its meal of dry timbers and ancient carpets with a gulp of water fed to it like a fountain. The great dragon took a breath and all was silent as it suddenly belched and fled.

He knew what was going to happen; it had looked so sanitary, sterile in the diagrams and drills. Puff had simply found a bigger meal and went in search of it. The great dragon would return.

For now the spared appetizer forced himself from his knees and stumbled to the window. Where was the air that was supposed to revive him; the sight of the engine that was supposed to bolster his courage? Where was the sun! His sight had not left him, he could see his death in here quite clearly; the peeling paint and wallpaper that fell back revealing layers of some forgotten lives for what must have been two hundred years.

A great rumble told him that the beast had blasted the other side of the house and it would return until it ate every crumb. He'd moved up on the menu to dessert.

XXXX

"Cap, have you seen Johnny?" Roy roared over the quaking barn boards.

"He was on the third floor of the house by the North window just before the barn caved and we had to pull the engine back, the barn's too close to the house and with both of them involved we can't risk being trapped between."

Cap thumbed his HT trying to gain contact with his young paramedic.

Roy's eyes darted to the proximity of the window but he could see nothing but narrow alleyway where flames enjoyed a wagon wheel topped with hay with a pitchfork on top for dessert.

Their eyes would have met if not for the beast's rude belches of smoke and flaming embers and ash. It was as if the day had given up and let midnight come early complete with a blood moon that was on the ground instead of in the sky.

"We split up …" Roy trailed. "I gave my victim to Bellingham and turned around to go back up but…"

"I had no choice, Roy," Cap said as he thumbed the HT again.

It was true. Cap had to call it. There was no hope for anyone left in that house.

Roy turned. His posture said everything Cap needed to know.

"We can't Roy, the stairs are out, hell the whole South side toppled."

"Damn it, Gage, answer!" Cap shouted, his fingers surely white-knuckled under the thick gloves. Gone was the formal call of _Engine fifty one to HT fifty one_. Now it was brothers calling for their youngest; feeling useless like they were playing fireman in turnouts that suddenly felt too big.

Engine fifty one's engine roared through the artificial night as if it had missed the order to retreat.

"Cap, I can push that wagon and trough out so we can get between the buildings, I know I can," Mike coughed, opening the driver's side of Big Red to look down on his Captain with determined eyes. "It might give us one more chance."

The gap was narrow, illegal to be sure, barely room for a large car to park between barn and house.

Cap had to be practical. He had to think with his brain, not his heart which he wished he could remove at the moment. Even if Mike could clear a path, there was no way a crew could stand the heat and danger of building collapse as had already happened to the South side of the old house.

XXXX

John was on his side when his O2 alarm went off. What a cruel joke; to wake him to tell him he was almost out of air. It had been peaceful where he'd been. The alarm forced him once more to his knees where stupid instinct drew him to the window. Acrid ground-level clouds of black with linings not of silver but of lava beckoned him. The very ground was on fire. The only question now was whether to let the dragon eat him or to leap and perhaps die slower. Yes, it was still the better thing to do. And he couldn't see the ground, which made it easier. A bit. They'd find his body after the smoke cleared, no one would have to risk carrying his body down the non-existent staircase. This was better; nobler.

He would have taken a deep breath before his leap of faith that there was something better after this life if he could but the final screech of his oxygen monitor denied even this final pleasure.

John struggled out of his oxygen tank, removing the mask that was suctioned onto his face with heat and sweat; the sucking octopus tentacle sound would have been comical in any other situation _… did octopus suckers make noise under water?_ No matter, he'd never be able to find out now. It was weird what passed through one's mind before death and damn what a bummer he'd never be able to make a tree-falling-in-the-forest song about it and get rich like that other guy.

The dragon was back. It bowed to him under the door then stood to its full height. He was spared the jump from the windowsill he was perched on as the beast took pity and gave him a fiery push of heat. The sky was falling just like Chicken Little had said for now there was no cloud or ground.

It wasn't like the movies. It didn't take an age to fall. Less than a second really. He waited to see the light … not sure which light but he'd heard about a light a few times. Was it a bad thing that the only light he could see through his closed lids was orange? No matter, just like the fall in a second all was black.

XXXX

Mike Stoker was unaware that he held his tongue between his teeth in determination as he rammed his beloved engine in between the barn and the house feeling metal scrape wood on the sides and the huge, capable bumper shove the burning wagon out of the way like a billiard ball. Marco and Chet followed like foot soldiers with the only weapons they had; it was like bringing a knife to a gunfight and they knew it.

Sweat ran into Roy's boots, the charbroiled grass crunched under his feet. He fixed the powerful flashlight under his arms and propped the heavy ladder up against the wall of the house where the wagon's position had been usurped. Marco and Chet could only watch as he ascended into poison cloud. Oxygen hissed pointlessly into five masks as the men held their breaths.

Cap swallowed hard and fought to find his voice after a few minutes. Flames licked around the corners of the dying building as he depressed the call button on the HT ordering Roy to return to the engine.

XXXX

Roy thought he'd at least step up to the mouth of the beast in challenge, ordering it to belch his friend back out from its great girth. The flames fought with the smoke and his partner's oxygen tank flashed tauntingly into view for a fraction of a second before being swallowed with a feeble explosion that boosted the beast up to taste the ceiling and shatter the tinkling glass of the light fixture. Having picked its teeth clean of its meal with the shattered glass toothpicks the beast set its sights on Roy.

White knuckles clung to warming rungs of the ladder. Roy pictured his wife and kids as he half slid, half climbed down the ladder while his captain yelled from somewhere in his turnout coat pocket. When his feet hit the ground his brain continued to descend, his left foot absently searching the ground for more rungs. How could he have actually climbed down without his partner? He listened with so much determination his face screwed up like he was lifting weights. He could've sworn he heard John's feeble calls and coughing and choking. And then it stopped and Cap's frantic calls for retreat mixed with the realization that guilt sounded a lot like his dead partner. There was no way in hell … and this was hell, that anyone could've survived that fire.

Marco and Chet's eyes weren't visible beneath their masks but Roy could feel their horror as he stepped from the last rung empty handed. Shingles cracked and popped in the air raining down upon them. The three men clung to the back of the engine each thumbing an HT telling the engineer to step on it and get them out of the death alley.

The engine cleared the narrow passage and the North side of the house fell open like the skeleton of a large beast that had been taken down by a pack of lions, its beams gleaming like scoured ribs. There was nothing left to do but surround and drown; the controlled burn of cremation.

XXXX

Roy sunk to his knees. Hands fell upon his shoulders as much in support as mutual comfort. Other companies took over as Chief Houts stood fifty-one down. Mike slid boneless from his seat, the seat that usually exuded confidence, victory. He'd failed. Cap had listened to his schemes. Mike brushed his face harshly with gloved hands glad that he couldn't feel the tears that soaked the material. What right did he have to this natural release? He swiped the offending liquid away furiously as the captain he'd let down approached striding tall and prepared to no doubt voice to him exactly what his guilt fused mind already told him. Failure!

XXXX

Cap had never wanted to run away as much as he did now. He squared his shoulders and strode toward his men, preparing a speech in his mind. His shoulders found their way down, his neck letting his head fall forward onto his chest so he could no longer see the men his feet were still willing to propel him to. He should have thought of something like Mike's strategy sooner. He should have consulted him sooner. He should've … could've … would've … but he didn't. Logic was cold and brutal.

XXXX

St. Florien took a dizzying spin through Marco's un-gloved fingers until spite and anger and a temporary loss of religion caused the linesman to throw the medallion away from him like a poisonous snake. The shiny disc flew high into the air making a vague metallic ping like it was skittering along on metal until the sound disappeared like a skipping stone sinking into an ocean God knew where. Where the hell was their patron saint now? He forced himself to ease his grip on Roy's shoulder. Only respect for the others kept him from bellowing to the heavens asking for proof, and reproaching the many false hopes.

XXXX

Chet was the only man who took his helmet off, making him feel guilty for gasping the breeze that blew their way and then accepting with relish the punishing cough brought on by the smoke it carried; insult to add to their injury. He thought his coughs were echoing, going on much longer than he felt; the rasping agony riding the wind all around them mixing with the crackling and popping of sand and grit that parted company with roofing shingles to join the earth again. But it didn't sound like him. This was it; the telltale heart … um, cough. He heard it again and again before crumpling to his knees beside Roy and clasping his hands tightly to his ears to block the sound. His pigeon was having the last laugh and Chet knew he'd be haunted forever. He never mentioned the barn board that had temporarily dislodged his mask from his face; he was still breathing, John Gage wasn't.

XXXX

It was hot. His mouth hung open, slack; so dry that he relished the tainted mist that drifted over his face when the wind blew. The ground seemed to move underneath him only to come to a jerking stop. Something pinged his bare hand. Where his gloves were was anyone's guess. His fingers closed around the round disc. He squeezed his hand over it tightly and it seemed to ground him. He concentrated on its smooth edges and sculpted relief surfaces. It was a coin. Yes of course, one had to pay for admission to Hades, right? He wasn't a particularly religious man but he held onto beliefs from his life on the reservation as well as a healthy respect for a being larger than himself. So here he lay wondering how he'd been so wrong about it all.

XXXX

Cap sat on the ground next to his men as Roy listened to Chet's breathing while the linesman insisted he was fine through vicious coughing fits.

"You vitals are all normal, Chet, a little oxygen and you should be fine in about twenty minutes or so or we'll send you on to Rampart," Roy said tiredly handing Chet the O2 mask.

"My mask was only dislodged for a minute," Chet explained not wanting any fuss.

Cap was about to order the resident phantom to put the mask on when Mike's arm snaked up from around Chet snatching the mask from his hand and placing it on Chet's face with a glare worthy of the Captain. Chet left it on looking utterly defeated like he didn't deserve air.

Faith was an intangible thing, so very hard to find. Marco absently reached for his coin, realizing with a thrill or horror how he'd abandoned hope and belief. Like a smoker without cigarettes, his hands longed for something to do. He never realized how much he fidgeted with the medallion. He told himself he could always get a new one but it wouldn't be the same. His uncle had given him that medallion the day he graduated into the fire department.

With a clap of support on Chet's shoulder Marco discreetly began searching the ground before him, trying to gauge how far the coin would have flown from his angry throw. He didn't realize that in trying to be discreet he was anything but. Fluent Spanish pleas could be heard uttering in muted whispers from the senior linesman.

"Marco, pal, you okay?" Cap asked, getting to his feet and subconsciously beginning to look around on the ground like people sometimes do when they see someone searching for a contact lens or else looking up to the sky for no apparent reason.

"I lost it, Cap, I lost it. I can't find it," Lopez replied in rapid-fire English.

Cap ran a hand over his face. He was torn between letting the men stay until John's remains were recovered as they had requested and ordering them back to the station and then home.

"What did you lose, Marco?" Cap asked kindly now looking for an HT or perhaps a tool on the muddied ground though he couldn't understand why the man would be so upset about something like that at a time like this.

"St. Florien, I lost him, Cap," Marco said sounding completely broken. "Instead of being thankful that you," he gestured around at the remaining members of fifty one, "were still alive, I was angry … that Johnny's…"

"I know, Marco, it doesn't make any sense. It never will."

Marco was grateful that Cap didn't launch into a great speech but instead humored him by helping in his hopeless search knowing he was looking for much more than a good luck charm.

Roy asked Mike to keep an eye on Chet while he stretched and started helping Marco. He needed to do something, to be moving because sitting meant thinking and thinking brought pain beyond endurance.

Bolstered by a few sets of eyes to help in the search Marco explained in an embarrassed tone how he'd heard the medallion strike metal and then become silent. Together the men scoured the muddy spears of burnt grass blocking out the search effort noises all around them.

"I'll take a look up top," Roy told Marco, needing a minute to himself. He climbed to the top of Big Red. It was darker up here, most of the lights around them directed upon the mound of rubble. He gave a cursory glance around then slumped silently into a sitting position upon the remaining hose. It was a way to be closer to Johnny in some ways as he'd often been found up there _just thinkin'_ when something had been bothering him.

XXXX

There was a sudden weight on his chest. He'd been pretty sure he was already dead but maybe this was his heart's final hurrah. Dying sure took a long time, especially when one already had presumably exact change for the trip there. He tightened his grip on the coin, his fingernails digging into his palm. He didn't think he'd been getting air before but now he was sure he wasn't. Did it hurt to die; so many of his patients had desperately asked him, to which he'd obviously lied? Yes! It did! Still, it was a noble lie and defiance rose in him; he wouldn't change a thing in that regard, how could one look into a dying person's face and tell them no matter where they ended up, it hurt like hell at least for awhile?

XXXX

Roy shifted on the lumpy hose. Water moaned in the hoses beneath him. The darkness around him played with his senses and moaning mixed with the groaning as the building in the distance that was his friend's tomb was dissected for the excavation.

"Ughhhhhh …"

"What the hell!" Roy yelled, jumping to his feet so fast he teetered, arms wind-milling on the edge of the top of Red.

Once Roy regained his footing he gave in to the tricks his eyes were playing on him and squatted next the mirage wedged and tangled in wet hose. His hands tore at fabric covered in roofing shingles and soot. He tossed ancient square nails away from himself and his prize until he saw a ghost.

"John-Johnny? Oh my God!" Roy whispered unable to find his voice. "C-Cap!"

Cap and the guys were already on their feet having seen Roy almost plummet from the engine. Cap spared a dagger-laden grimace toward Chet who stared defiantly back as he kept pace with the others to get to Roy.

"Johnny!" Roy screamed into the darkness before he disappeared from view again.

Mike climbed Big Red, his hands out before him in a placating gesture once he crested the top. It was heartbreaking to hear Roy screaming his partner's name into the night. Roy knelt low, folded over with his head down on the hose.

"Roy, it's going be okay. Let's get you down from here. We'll get Chet to Rampart to get checked out and call Joanne, okay?" _And maybe get you something for your nerves too,_ Mike had as an afterthought.

"Mike, he's breathing! He's alive!" Roy sobbed as he tore at something in front of him.

Mike's eyes adjusted to the dim light to behold a sight he would never forget. Wedged in between the few remaining coils of hose was their youngest brother.

Professionalism temporarily out the window Mike hollered for the equipment from the squad unable to articulate what he saw.

Marco ran for the squad as Cap thumbed the HT barely catching Brice before he pulled away to follow the ambulance with his partner and their victim.

"Chet stay here, that's an order. I'm gonna help Mike with Roy; he must have passed out or something. Chet coughed in compliance as squad sixteen skidded to a halt on the muddy ground beside Big Red. Brice hopped out and hurried to the side of his squad as Marco thrust toward him the equipment he'd already gathered. Brice opened his mouth to argue but one glare from the mustached linesman had him scrambling up the side of Big Red with borrowed equipment.

Cap grabbed the biophone and climbed up after Brice.

Brice none too gently nudged Roy aside to which Cap opened his mouth to yell at the usually brisk young man but he quickly closed it. There before Roy's kneeling form was John Gage. Mike was on his other side finishing opening his turnout gear as Roy; unaware of anything else around him leaned in for another listen to John's chest.

"Desoto, let me help," Brice said gently as he nudged further to gain access to the downed paramedic.

Roy's eyes met Cap's. He'd been on auto pilot … well, auto paramedic until now. Roy took a deep breath and for once was glad that Brice was at his side.

Without another word, Brice handed Roy the BP cuff while he got a pulse and checked John's pupils. Brice looked to Mike who had opened a line with Rampart and reported the pulse and pupil responses while Roy professionally called out the BP.

From the ground, Marco's arm snaked around Chet's shoulders and replaced the spare oxygen.

"Poor Roy," Chet said sadly. Marco's head hung low and he uttered a prayer to a god he wasn't so sure existed only minutes before. "He's never gonna be the same without Johnny."

Cap heard the exchange from his perch on the ladder.

"Chet, Marco, we've found John! He's on the engine! He's alive!"

From picturing Roy having a heart attack or passing out to finding out John was alive, Chet sunk lower to the ground in relief that he hoped wouldn't be short lived.

"You better lie down, amigo," Marco said gently helping Chet stretch out with his hands over his face. Guilt washed over Marco as he spared another futile glance around for his St. Florien medallion in the hopeless mess of mud and burnt grass.

"His pressure's dropping!" echoed through the smoky air.

XXXX

John squinted in bright light. This was it but _it_ was unlike anything he'd imagined. The light came from a great mound of treasure, coins and chains as far as the eyes could see, glinting in the bright light that seemed to come from everywhere.

A great moan so loud it rumbled the ground beneath his feet issued from an unknown source until the heaps and piles of coins and gold and silver chains shifted like tectonic plates revealing the great dragon sleeping beneath them, his expensive blanket slipping to reveal massive scales of iridescent pinks, gold and greens.

"What is your business here?" asked the dragon, yawning out a great blast of fire with his sleepy query.

Heat rushed over John's head as he ducked, ending up kneeling before the dragon.

"Uh … um … I-I was kinda hopin' you'd tell me that," John quaked. Where were the pearly gates? Did people see those from a distance, mistaking them for the pearly scales of the dragon who was obvious master of this strange place?

The dragon sighed as if with patience for a small child and shook further from his restful slumber causing the coins to pelt down like rain to land on and around the paramedic who shook them from his body and hair. One coin stuck to his bleeding palm and he looked into the tiny face of St. Florien. He tried to shake the coin from his palm but even prying with his fingernails would not budge the coin which seemed to be part of him.

"Who are you?" asked John, stumbling around, his feet slipping on loose coins and chain; every step unsure as the very substance beneath him quaked and shifted.

"Who do you think I am?" was the annoying reply given through a sharp toothed, gleaming, white smile of jagged teeth and massive jaws which led to a belly of fire.

John looked over his shoulder. In times like these … well, not times like_ these _so much but in confusing times he usually asked Roy his opinion of things, then he'd pretty much ignore what Roy said and do what he felt in his heart anyway. Now there was no one to ask for help or advice.

John stammered, half joking. "Puff? You know? Th-the magic dragon?"

The dragon smiled indulgently and in a literal puff of smoke that smelled of fresh rain and cut grass transformed into a man wearing a white robe with sandals. When the smoke cleared, traces of the great dragon remained in his smiling face. The snout had retreated to reveal a long nose which went up to reveal kind eyes the color of rusted iron.

"I am St. Florien," the man explained. "I can take any form I wish. When I searched your heart I saw the dragons of which your forefathers spoke and the dragons from your favorite childhood stories."

"Yeah, well, you scared me. I just saw a dragon in the fire too," John stated before thinking of what the punishment for mouthing off to a saint would be. "A-and it ate me I think."

Florien actually laughed at this, raising John's ire. "Ah, Johnny, you and Jonah are very alike. He actually thought he'd lived in the belly of a great whale."

"Well-well if I didn't get swallowed by Puff … um, you … um, you know, died, then where am I?" Some of John's bravado left him in a rush. "I'm d-dead, aren't I?"

"I don't think so," Florien said and sensing great fear in the young man he turned into a figure John could relate to.

A great bear with a hat perched upon its head smiled at him from those same crooked, gleaming white teeth and though the bear was black it seemed to radiate a rainbow of muted colors.

"Sm-smoky?" said John," tears shining in his dark eyes. "Oh my God, I forgot to tap my poster before shift today. I really am dead!"

The bear lumbered to sit beside the young man who fell into the soft fur and sobbed before gathering his wits.

"Roy, the guys; are they alright?" John asked urgently.

A massive paw lost its fur becoming a human arm around his shaking shoulders once more.

"Your shift mates are alright, do not worry for them young one," Florien said kindly. One of them lost his faith temporarily but you caught it."

"What do you mean?" asked John wide eyed.

"You'll see, I'm afraid it won't be easy though, you very nearly crossed over to where many like you now dwell. Do not worry, they are truly happy but you don't belong there yet."

For reasons he couldn't explain this statement scared John. "Uh, if I uh, go back … can you tell me, am I – am I burned?" he waved in the general direction he thought his body might be.

"As to that I do not know. There is will beyond your own though begging your return."

Florien was a lot stronger than his human form looked. He lifted John from the ground, scooping a chain from the floor. "Give this to the one called Marco," he said as he guided John to a dark corner that suddenly appeared in the landscape of light. Tell him that it indeed can be payment to come live here but more than that, it is very like those HT devices you humans use to communicate; I do listen you know though decisions are not always mine to make."

"But … it's dark. Are you coming with me? I'm scared, Florien help me!" John screamed when pain slammed back into his body as Florien disappeared with a wave of his hand, which turned to a paw and then a claw before it faded from sight with everything else.

"Your brothers are waiting, go to them."

XXXX

"Got him!" Roy cried from somewhere in the darkness.

"That's it, Gage, stay with us," came the cool, collected voice of Brice.

John's eyes fluttered open. His chest was on fire, oxygen forced its way into his lungs. He sucked it greedily.

"Spontaneous respiration!" Mike shouted into the biophone.

"Help me Dra-dragons!" John thrashed beneath the hands of his rescuers. A hand found his, intertwining fingers.

"Sh-shhh, everything's okay, Junior, you're safe. Everything's gonna be fine. There's no such thing as dragons. You just ate too much smoke but you're gonna be okay."

What did Roy know! Dragon's existed and he and the guys needed to know that. But wait, they weren't _all_ bad. Maybe it was gonna be okay.

John concentrated hard to articulate his fingers. He felt the coin. His free hand came up to prove to Roy that dragons existed but someone gently took it and placed it back down beside him.

"Johnny, you have to keep your arm down, you have an IV and you don't wanna pull it, right?" came Stoker's strained voice.

John fought the hands on his shoulders as he tried to move his arm again. His eyes snapped open in pained determination. Roy clasped his other hand and John released the coin from his bloodied palm. His head inclined in a slight nod as he stared into his partner's blue eyes with a message before his eyes rolled back and he knew no more.

Roy stared at the bloodied coin in astonishment before slipping it into his pocket and attending to cleaning and bandaging John's hand which spurted blood with every beat of his heart. Brice and Stoker completed securing the injured young man onto the backboard and together the men of fifty one carried their brother to the waiting ambulance.

Roy waited for Brice to challenge him when he stepped into the ambulance but Brice merely nodded and made room.

"We thought he was gone; that we'd lost him, I'm not leaving him again," Roy said with force.

"Of course," Brice responded, lending a hand to the blonde paramedic when he stumbled as he stepped into the ambulance.

Mike gave the back of the ambulance two taps as Cap helped Chet into the squad's passenger seat while Marco slid behind the wheel.

"Cap, I told ya, I'm fine, Roy said I just needed some oxygen," Chet protested.

"He also said you'd need to be checked out," Cap reiterated.

Chet put his head in his hands. He watched in fascination as tiny puffs of condensation appeared and disappeared with each breath. He could only hope his friend still breathed.

Marco stared in the review mirror for a second in a vane attempt to catch a glimpse of sliver in the vehicle's revolving lights. He took a deep breath and kept driving.

Big Red followed the squad, her soot laden, scratched paint and dented bumper belying her power as she bore them to Rampart. Mike shivered, his hands white on the massive steering wheel. Engine fifty one had never carried a casket, she was in no fit shape to carry one now. _That's right, Gage, there's no amount of polish that's gonna get her ready in time for any funerals so you can't die. _With that ironclad logic shoving away images of rounds of CPR and a defibrillation that sent John's body arcing up from the backboard, Mike was determined to remain hopeful.

Brice and Roy slipped into treatment room three along with Dr. Brackett, Dr. Early and Nurse McCall. The door closed in a whoosh of awful finality in Chet, Mike, Marco and Cap's faces but they stood staring transfixed as if hoping for X-ray vision.

Dixie cut away the remainder of John's clothing. Roy absently brushed long strands of hair back from his partner's sweaty face hoping on one hand that he'd wake back up and complain about his modesty and on the other willing him to sleep through the poking and prodding he was about to receive. Roy winced as Bracket's practiced hands palpated John's chest and sides. John moaned and flinched and Roy watched for the telltale eyebrow raise from the doctor.

_A mouth twitch, that's usually better than an eyebrow_, Roy thought.

"You say he was lying on his back?" Early asked as he elicited more moans of discomfort from John when he pried open his eyes to check his pupil responses and then searched John's head for any bumps or indentations.

"Yeah, he must've jumped or fallen from the third floor," Roy said. "Somehow he managed to land on the engine when it was parked in the alley. He landed on some hose. It's the only way he could've survived. If he'd hit the burning wagon of hay and pitchfork…"

"Pupils, equal, dilated but reactive," Early announced.

Various X-rays were ordered and Roy reluctantly followed everyone out of the room.

"So far he looks good, Roy. There's no rigidity in his abdomen and Dr. Early thinks his concussion is mild."

"When his pressure bottomed out and he stopped breathing I thought…"

"Well, even accounting for him falling on the engine hose which took at least a story off the height of his fall it was still quite an impact. With all the smoke he inhaled and the sudden stop his lungs would've been compromised. His breath sounds are strong in both lungs now so I don't think there's any permanent damage there."

The waiting game began. Dixie cleaned minor cuts on John's face while Brackett inspected John's hand. He held up the appendage and that's when Roy got his first good look at the wounds; four half-moon red, deep indentations with a perfect round disc- shaped impression. Roy fished in his pocket and brought out the forgotten coin.

_It can't be _Roy thought, remembering Marco's cry of disbelief when he tossed the coin away.

John groaned and his eyes opened slowly. "Ow-gawd."

Brackett leaned over his young patient. "Johnny, do you know where you are?"

John blinked slowly, eyes transfixed on the bright light above him. His body tensed and he hissed in pain again from beneath the oxygen mask.

"John, don't move around, you have a few broken ribs and collarbone, do you understand?"

John tore his eyes away from the light reluctantly and tried to turn his head but found he couldn't because it was secured in place by a neck brace so he settled for roving his eyes about to find the blurry images of Dr. Brackett, Dr. Early, Dixie and Roy.

"R-Rampart?" he rasped, his brow furrowing in concentration that looked a might painful.

After passing most of Dr. Early's neurological exams, Dixie got the nod to give her young friend some much needed pain relief. In seconds John's body lost the rigid pose. He closed his eyes for a couple of minutes while Roy took his hand willing him back for just another minute.

"How you feeling, Johnny?" Roy asked. "Bit better now?"

"S-safe," the prone paramedic replied before his eyes closed again and he sighed deeply a pained frown forming from the action but settling into steady, shallow breaths.

Brackett moved the stethoscope across John's chest and abdomen again. The X-rays arrived and Dr. Early snapped them under the lights waiting until Brackett was finished with his investigation to speak.

Roy's shoulders sagged as he listened quietly to the conversation between the doctors. His friend would be spared surgery, his ribs would heal and he'd be fitted for a brace for his collarbone until it healed. He would spend one night in ICU to be observed for any breathing or cardiac problems because of the height and impact of his fall. Overall one could argue the diagnosis of _lucky _but compared to what they'd thought only an hour earlier, this was a miracle.

Dixie shooed Roy out to get a cup of coffee and tell the men the good news. He found them in the lounge.

"How's Johnny?" Chet asked finding his voice first despite still being on oxygen.

"The docs think he's gonna be okay. He's got some broken ribs in front and back and his left collar bone is broken. He's going to be closely monitored for the next twenty four hours for any breathing or cardiac problems. Falls like that can cause depressed breathing without warning for awhile because it puts the diaphragm into spasm. It was a miracle he was breathing at all when we found 'im … It was a miracle we found him at all," Roy reiterated, producing Marco's St. Florien medallion from his pocket.

Roy held out the medallion. Marco took it in trembling fingers.

"But where…"

"I went up on the engine to think, to be alone for a minute. I took a half- hearted glance around for your coin and not finding it straight away I sat down … on Johnny! It was touch and go when I first found 'im and after we got 'im back he came around for a couple of minutes. He gave me that," Roy said pointing to the medallion in Marco's still open palm.

"He must've caught it," Mike said in awe. "But the odds of that …" The Engineer reached into his pocket to withdraw his own medallion. It was common knowledge that he, Marco and Chet all had St. Florien medallions. "There was so much against us tonight. If John had fallen one second sooner, we wouldn't have seen him; I would've run him over or he'd have landed on the burning wagon and pitch fork. If Marco hadn't thrown his coin, you wouldn't have climbed the engine to help find it and by the time we loaded hose it would've been too late."

Coffee hitting the bottoms of empty mugs was the only sound as every man contemplated the many miracles they had witnessed this night. Cap handed the steaming mugs out, mindful of the medallion that lived in his own pocket that he'd never told anyone about. After all, captains were supposed to be practical, logical, they didn't rely on saints or tap posters for good luck. Cap made a mental note to offer John and Roy a medallion each since it was one of the many traditions to receive one from a fellow firefighter or a relative. What they did with that medallion was up to them, he'd ask no questions.

XXXX

A man in a white robe and sandals peered through the small window into the lounge. The smell of old smoke and soot wafted under the sill to meet his heightened senses for it. He sniffed it appreciatively as scaly wings appeared beneath a disappearing robe; his nostrils elongated allowing him to taste the smoke through the fiery snout. With one swift beat the great wings expanded into wind sails and carried him up three floors.

John woke with a groan of pain as he was transferred from the gurney to a bed. He no longer smelled of smoke and the light fabric of a hospital gown touched his skin. He swallowed hard fighting nausea from the noise of his steadily beeping monitors as his concussion made its presence more acutely known. A large, plastic bag marked _Patient Property _sat on a chair next to the bed.

Dixie allowed the orderlies and ICU nurse to see to adjusting John's monitors and IV.

"You must be pretty special, John Gage. I'm on break. I don't usually see patients to their rooms ya know," she said fussing with his blankets and brushing strands of hair back from his forehead where they seemed determined to stick.

"Dix?" John rasped. "Can you h-hand me my shirt?"

Dixie looked suddenly guilty. "You don't remember? We had to cut it off, Johnny I'm sorry. But don't worry you'll only have to wear this gown for a day or so then I promise I'll ask Roy to get some of your own pajamas, okay?"

John closed his eyes and Dixie was relieved until she realized he was fighting sleep. "My pocket … is my pocket there?" John asked waving a hand in the direction of the tied up bag.

Knowing she'd have to humor him if she was to get him any peace, Dixie obligingly opened the bag, wrinkling her nose as the acrid scent of smoke reached her.

"Yeah, Johnny, Carol put your ripped shirt in here," Dixie announced. She withdrew the tattered blue cotton and noticed the considerable weight of the fabric.

John closed his eyes in relief as Dixie handed him the shirt and he rummaged in the pocket extracting his hand in wonder. A gold, serpentine chain emerged.

_Give this to the one called Marco_, Florien had told him.

John's eyes opened in wonder that pushed past the pain and seemed to look past Dixie to the window. He stared so intently that Dixie turned around. It was silly; they were on the third floor, what could possibly have captivated the young paramedic so completely at that window?

A dragon loomed before him, magnificently back-lit by the sunrise which burnished orange and gold into his gleaming, smooth scales. He smiled his crooked, white smile before a big bear in a hat sat upon an earthbound cloud and winked at him before vanishing.

"Dix! D-did you see that?" John whispered in awe, wincing as he forgot his pain and tried to sit up.

"The sunrise is really beautiful today, Johnny. I'm so glad you're here to see it with me," Dixie said with a lump in her throat knowing they'd nearly lost him that day. She gently settled him back down.

"No, there was a-a … never mind."

Dixie smiled as the medicine finally pulled the young paramedic under. As she was leaving the room she turned quickly, swearing she heard something beyond the normal rush of the ICU.

_Remember, only you can prevent forest fires. _

_XXXX  
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_A_/N Yep, I do know the song 'If A Tree Falls' came out after Emergency, it just fit with the story.

Nope, this story isn't meant to be religious, it's a fact that many firefighters carry a St. Florien medallion so I went with that.


End file.
